Other Baseball

This is something I do with my friends and thought it would be fun to bring to this board. Everyone picks 6 pitchers and you take the cumulative season stats for the 6, rank them for each category and see who ends up with the most points. Points are determined by the specific place in that category (ie if 10 people are in the contest, the winner of the category gets 10 points, second place 9 points, etc). Categories I use: IP (weighted 2x) ERA (weighted 2x) Wins WHIP Ks BBs HRs CGs Pick 6 pitchers total. There are no switching pitchers during the season, even for injury. You can pick a maximum of one pitcher from each of the following groups: Group 1: Verlander, F…

Notes about former Twins around the majors: Player/ABs/Avg/OPS/Notes D Ortiz /31 /.516 /1.400 /started season on DL 11 RBI M Cuddyer /31 /.333 /1.000 17 RBI W Ramos /20 /.300 /.991 /on 15-day DL, minor league rehab N Punto /30 /.400 /.933 T Hunter /96 /.375 /.917 /1 HR, 0 steals, 7 2B C Gomez /80 /.338 /.914 /3 HR, 15 RBI (but 2/4 in stolen bases??) G Jones /68 /.324 /.896 J Kubel /33 /.303 /.888 /just off 15-day DL AJ Pierzynski /78 /.295 /.800 /4 HR, 11 RBI B Harris /44 /.273 /.679 D Span /90 /.278 /.679 /.356 OBP, recent highlight film catches A Casilla /29 /.241 /.577 J Hardy /96 /.198 /.576 /3 HRs, 14 RBIs B Revere /87 /.207 /.472 …

I was browsing AL rookie stats today on MLB.com and realized there isn't anyone in the league having a breakout rookie season. Hicks leads the AL in most batting categories including HR, R, RBI, and SB. Would they ever give the ROY to someone that hits under .200? Even on the pitching side there's no one whose stats jump off the page. Actually Ryan Pressly's numbers are amongst the most impressive of anyone with that 1.24 ERA and 23 K. I think if Arcia sticks around the rest of the season he's got the most impressive overall rookie line and would have a good shot at the award. Major League Baseball Stats | MLB.com: Stats

Nice debut for the pirates. Hope he can continue.

Watching mlb network. Odd decision to have pitcher Zack Grienke bat in the bottom of the 7th but that doesn't matter here.Ian Kennedy throws the 1st pitch right at his head. Greinke is ok but Kennedy should get a LONG suspension for that.There will also be other suspensions that could include managers and coaches. Punches were thrown and fines will be plenty.

I tried to google this but came up with NSFW content so my question is can anyone recall an Asian pitcher having Tommy John surgery before? Maybe the U.S. should look more into how Japan handles its pitchers with higher pitch counts and an extra day of rest between starts. Or maybe there are cases and they're all just weeded out before they come over here.

Our old friend Kevin Slowey pitched quite a game today, especially considering he did that in innings 13-19 of the 20 inning game. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 100%] [TD=align: left]K Slowey (W, 2-5) [/TD] 7.0 8 [/TD] 8 94-70 3.77 [/TABLE] He out-dueled a suggested target for the Twins this past off season: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 100%] [TD=align: left]S Marcum (L, 0-7) 8.0 5 1 1 [/TD] 7 [TD]105-84 4.96 [/TABLE]

Y! SPORTS Punto > Kershaw

Major League Baseball might suspend 20 players, including Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun as part of Miami investigation - ESPN I'm thinking this might now have some legs. Over 20 players could get popped.

After his age 30 season he had 354 HR and had just signed with the White Sox in a great hitters park. Seemed pretty easy to imagine him getting to 500. Then he was beyond awful in his first year with the Sox (it was great) and only hit 11 homers and posting a 54 OPS+. Last year, he bounced back and hit 41 and the six he has this year brings his career total to 412. But he's now 33 and really struggling again. Hicks has a higher OBP than Dunn. It's hard to see him getting enough PA over the next 2-3 years to hit 88 HRs.

It happened..... a MLB team went with my idea of starting a reliever, and having the game be a "starter by committee". They threw a shutout. Really something the Twins should consider, imo. It really is a way of getting the most of your resources. Does anyone think this could actually catch on?

He kind of stepped in it with his sabermetric comments after Ackley was demoted, but I think he did a pretty good job clarifying here: Wedge discusses his sabermetric remarks | Mariners blog | Seattle Times Lots of good stuff, and definitely close to the way I look at hitting and using sabermetrics.

There have been a lot of new measures in the last decade. Many help frame the game of baseball in new ways. WPA - Win Probability Added tries to measures a players impact on winning games. Earlier this week Mike Trout hit for the cycle and stole a base. His WPA for the game was -0.012. His performance that day decreased the probability his team would win the game. Jose Bautista posted a WPA of over 1 in his two homeruns walk off performance earlier this week. I am not sure what that means, but the Blue Jays sure could use two wins for one given their rough start. still interested? Great Moments in Numerical Oddities: Mike Trout?s Zero Hour | Getting Blanked | Bl…

Did anyone see ? I'm always amazed at how baseball can defy physics.

Grantland had an interview with Russell Martin and the skill of framing pitches this week. The plot of called strikes comparing 2008-2012 and 2013. Q&A: Russell Martin on the Art of Pitch Framing - The Triangle Blog - Grantland This may be of more interest considering that the Twins have the guy that caught many games for the Pirates from 2008-2011. You can also find interviews at Baseball Prospectus (not behind the pay wall) with the perspective from a pitcher (McCarthy), catcher (Miguel Montero/Chris Stewart), GM (Towers), scout and former umpire (McKeon). This link will take you to the BP Unfiltered blog and you will find the interviews within Baseball…

AUTHOR - PETER C. BJARKMAN A: This was the guy in the Anthony Bourdain "No Reservations" Cuba episode. B: This guys knows more about Cuban baseball than the vast, vast majority of American baseball people. C: He drinks at the Lafayette Brewing Company in Lafayette, IN where I drink mightily. I just discovered A and B today. I am thinking about writing an article about this with an interview. Any questions to be asked? He has met Twins scouts in Cuba and they do scout there . . . but they really scouted players from The Netherlands.

Ben Revere, former Twin, makes catch of the year (w/video) - TwinCities.com

Did y'all see it? Baseball Video Highlights & Clips | OAK@CLE: Rosales' fly ball reviewed, ruled a double - Video | indians.com: Multimedia Brutal. But Angel must have at least half-a-dozen calls like this every year. He must know where the bodies are buried.

The guy's been DFA'd for nearly 24 hours now and I haven't seen one post requesting his services. I thought every time his name came up, a Pavlovian response caused Twins fans to commence drooling. I guess times have changed since he was last DFA'd. It seemed to me that ever since the Mets told the Twins "No" regarding his availability in a Santana trade, he got ten times more desirable. That of course is the same response I get from my two-year-old when I refuse him something.

Y! SPORTS

Baseball HOF has a bunch of scouting reports here. Here's a link for a Mauer report - http://scouts.baseballhall.org/media/reports/05545.jpg Pretty neat stuff, if you like scouting at all.

They put together a Saturday Night Live opening credits style of announcing their lineup.

Watching his rapid demise is one of the saddest things I've seen in baseball.

I'm a numbers guy, and I love statistics, but I haven't spent a lot of time getting comfortable with sabermetrics, pitch f/x, etc. One of the sabermetric stats that has always surprised me is BABIP. I've heard a lot of people whose sabermetric opinion I highly respect refer to a high BABIP as being "lucky" (if you're a hitter, unlucky if you're a pitcher). I'm sure there is statistical evidence that backs this up, but it has never made intuitive sense to me. For example, when a hitter talks about "seeing the ball better," wouldn't that lead to a better ability to hit the ball harder and put it where he wants, causing a higher BABIP? Anyway, I just stumbled upon th…

9-for-18 on the week with 17 total bases and a .526 on-base percentage. Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez garners NL Player of Week honors | brewers.com: News

Maybe they should have shut him down after 20 innings this season.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka is currently batting .344 with a .415 on-base percentage for the 2nd place (14-10) Hanshin Tigers in the Nippon Leagues' Central League. He's played 22 games at second base, making two errors. According to the Google Chrome translation of the Hanshin Tigers website, Nishioka "emits" right-handed and "strokes" with both hands. He's had one "Death Ball" so far, zero "Conjunction Killing Strokes" and 32 "Cheap Shots."

Pretty cool, as the highlights appear to go all the way back to 1952. Pretty awesome resource once it has been fully rolled out. YouTube now offers more MLB highlights and full archived games

Tyler Mason of foxsportsnorth.com writes about Mike Redmond and how everyone knew he would eventually become a manager. It gives the background and a lot of praise from ex-teammates: It might beg the question of why they Twins weren't able to find room for him in their organization, though that would just mean he would have left them for the Marlins instead of the Blue Jays organization. But I wonder how he is ever going to survive this year. They're a terrible team. Ownership is incredibly incompetent. Connecting with fans at this point is near impossible. Does he have any chance to survive even to the end of next year? (And can he please coach for us when they fi…

Probably the most (positively) surprising team in MLB has to be Colorado. The Rockies were among the biggest disappointments last year and looked like a sure bet to be fighting with San Diego to stay out of the basement of the NL West. Somehow Colorado has won 13 of their first 17 games. Dexter Fowler is putting up great numbers, CarGo and Tulo are two of the better hitters in baseball and a couple of other young guys are adapting pretty well to Mile High baseball. My favorite Twin of all time, Michael Cuddyer, is off to a great start. He's hitting .357 with 1.089 OPs--4 homers and 13 RBI. He also is playing well in the field, starting at first and right field a…